Appearances

Thank you, Jessica Dewell for having me on to talk with Howard about stress and how much power to give it – or not at all. I hope you all enjoy this episode.

Society tends to attach the word, “thrive” to stress and deadlines. This can be a difficult idea to accomplish and may even add unnecessary pressure. The Voice of Bold Business tells us we don’t actually have to conform to this norm, at least not in the way it “should” be.

There are various ways to perceive stress and the first step is to sit down, take the time to realize our real priorities, and set the tone of each day, week, month, and ultimately, life. Each moment can throw its own setbacks… Factor in external pressures such as family obligations, work tasks that keep us on track for the next promotion, and our own personal goals and we’ve got ourselves in a rising sea of tension, anxiety and hassle.

It is so important to set aside time to actively work on emotional management and setting intentions for our own structures and routines and we cover exactly how to get you back on track in this Radio Program with Jessica Dewell, Susan Finch and Howard Strauber.

This episode will help you understand the benefits and harms of stress, how to define your real priorities, the power of letting go, time management, morning routines, how to enhance your communication skills to your benefit, how to handle the urge to give up and much much more.

Get the full episode here, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i83BkLfibgI&feature=youtu.be

Are you changing some of your branding? For a podcast, a series, or any of the other thousand ways we use branding? If yes, you need to decide if you want to go back to old episodes and BACK BRAND with the new branding to make it all look current. We can tend to go …

You don’t have to do it all, but if you do, “SMILE when you say that…” Your warmth carries through, as do your distractions. If you are hosting a podcast – video or audio, remember to turn off ringers, distractions and have your notes handy. The mute button can be your friend or foe if …

Last night I attended a local networking event. Lately, I’ve been skipping most events for a variety of reasons. The biggest reason is ROI (return on investment) of my time. After working a full day, creating solutions, guiding clients, I’m ready to unwind and be with the family, or go for a walk. I’m an …

B.L. Ochman and I dipped a toe into the new venue, Blam.im to rant about contact pages, your footer, your top links. Make it easy for us to find you. Stop hiding your key people. If you are that inundated with spammy people begging for jobs, you must be doing well. HIRE someone part-time to vet these for you. Allow us to know you. What if we want to interview you? Give you free publicity? We need to know we have the “right you.” Allow us to contact you immediately. Let us know where you will respond the quickest.

What about mobile? Are you really going to make me fill out a form WITH CAPTCHA? THAT is annoying. Do your forms work from mobile? Some do not. TEST THE EXPERIENCE. How easy is it to reach you? How easy is it to call you? Does your phone number actually link to dial from your mobile device? Does it link every place on your site the phone number is listed.

Brick and mortar, how about those hours, “directions here”, schedule service (phone). Don’t make it hard. Don’t make us dig and click.

PUT HUMAN faces to your contact list. Are you that secretive or ashamed that you don’t want to show your staff? Your key personnel – C space and department heads. How can we trust your company? You ask us to fill in forms, take our money, but you won’t give us a face? Hmmm.

Google has changed how they display map listings. There is less information. You need to have it available.

Jessica Dewell joined us and she reminded us that we have more than one contact page. It’s not just on our websites. We have a contact page on every social media venue with our profiles. TEST the links, review periodically.

B.L. also reminds us to not be distracted while driving. PULL OVER. Multi-tasking is a myth.

Most of us were taught good manners. Of that group, some still use them. It doesn’t stop when we are online, though. There are some basic TACTics you need to be aware of, habits to lose and learn when to NOT hit send. Zara Altair had me on as a guest on her Midweek Zap …

The Geekspeak Guides, Susan Finch and Yvonne Heimann, are at it again giving you ideas of how to use your own site content, content from other sites and from venues such as Youtube, Pinterest and more to populate your site, your podcasting venues such as iTunes and Stitcher. These ideas will help create that fill in content for your social media posts to give you more time to REALLY engage with people in real conversations. This episode was recently featured on Blubrry as a valuable episode.

RSS (Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication) is your simple pipeline of information. In a nutshell, it’s a properly formatted text file created dynamically by websites such as blogs and other content management systems. They don’t all create them, but most do. There are even tools you can use to create one on your own. THIS is the file you want so you can PUSH your content and reuse it, reshape it and share it better with MANY more venues including iTunes. You may use this superpower whether you are gathering content from your website, Pinterest, podcast or other online sites and services.

This video will give you several ideas and teach you how to find your RSS feed on your own site, and where you can use it.

Did you know that PINTEREST is actually a BLOG with CATEGORIES? That means that your entire Pinterest account and individual boards can all be treated as an RSS feed.

Google offers a great FREE tool to generate a feed post, allow subscribers, manage subscribers and allow you to bring in content from other sites into your own, share your content with others with just a few lines of code and it is all DYNAMIC using RSS.

Having a feed address gives you something very specific to submit to Google on one specific topic.

Podcasts use XML/RSS feeds, as well. It’s a text file with useful fields for these various venues. For a podcast, it knows to look for the associated media file, episode art and excerpt. Depending on the podcasting service you use such as Blubrry, Podbean, Lipsyn, you’ll be given different options before they send your fabulous content off to venues such as iTunes, Stitcher, SoundCloud and more.

This 20 minute show gives you some great ideas to use your content to generate more interest, more credibility, more leads and ultimately more sales. Trust us, we know this works.

This is for those of you who have never tried to be on a Hangout On Air through Google+ and YouTube. It may be a recorded event (less stressful) or a live broadcast to the whole world – if they happen to have received the link and are interested in what you have to talk …

It is hammered into your head that EVERY blog post, every article and update needs an image.

We know those posts generally get the most activity – but only if they are quality and interesting images. But what about the format of those images and graphics, especially when they need to be LARGE such as on Google+ and Pinterest? There are several formats for online images: jpg/jpeg, gif and the current favorite, png.

Instagram allows 15 second marketing videos, Pinterest allows you to pin all images, some videos and animated graphics – but what makes the most sense to get your message out there?

What’s the difference?

How do we know which we want?

Can we simply rename an image?

What about saving as, a save as after saving as?

A copy of a copy of a copy – even digitally – begins to lose quality. We’ll give you tips on how to avoid that issue and keep your images as crisp, clear and lovely as possible.

Start with the largest possible image and use SAVE AS to create variations and other formats. Name them all the same at the front and add: _500-lowres, _1200-highres, etc. so when you sort them they stay in a group and are easier to find.

Just because you can animate things, doesn’t mean you should. Let’s go back to that gooey baby from 1992!

Comment from event attendee, Brian Shea:

For those going back to the old days of dial-up in the 90’s, keeping file size small was one of the most important lessons, as we had to upload those images via 28.8/56k. So, we quickly understood and appreciated filesize. When broadband came in, and digital cameras, all the new designers thought nothing of using photos directly out of the cameras.
Yes, I’ve seen 4mb files being used on websites.
Even for some old timers, they didn’t get the concept that even though ‘everyone’ has broadband, the images still need to be optimized. It wasn’t until they got hit with major mobile data charges that they realized that filesize is not just about performance and speed. It’s also costly.

You had a video event or was in an audio interview – NOW WHAT? Is that all there is? Heck NO! Time to make that great event pay off for you.

Did you know YouTube is NOT a podcast? Just because you have something there, doesn’t mean it gets to iTunes, Stitcher and the rest of them. You need to bring them the files through a podcast venue such as Lipsyn, Podbean, Blubrry.

We’ll show you how we are doing this for a few folks and give you some other ideas of what to do with that great content. What about those interviews where you don’t have the original file – how can you use it in your podcast channel?

We will have a part 2 of how to go from video to audio and audio to video for podcasting or creating more content for YouTube.

Venues we covered in this show and getting your audio or video content to:

iTunes

Stitcher

Windows Phone 7/8 (formerly Zoon)

Miro – it’s the iTunes of Windows, so we hear.

Tunein Radio – radio/podcast station on your phone

DoubleTwist

Pocketcast

Roku – you heard us ROKU. Your content could be set up on a Roku channel – but it’s not simple. It usually requires the help of experts in this specific category. It has its own programming language.

IMBD – it’s not just for movies. It’s for YOUR content. Again, you may want to hire someone to help you with this.

Pandora – if you are posting MUSIC or COMEDY.

BABY steps. Start with iTunes and Stitcher. But how do you get it to them in a proper format? That’s where selecting the podcast venue that is best for you comes in. Only you can decide based on your needs, skills and budget. We suggest the following to consider: Podbean.com, Lipsyn.com, Blubrry for WordPress plugin, Soundcloud.

You’ll need graphics of specific sizes, a channel/show description – it’s ANOTHER profile that uses your RSS feed from your podcast venue/blog. This includes the main podcast graphic – each venue requires a different specification, icons, episode graphics for each episode to display in the players and more.

Don’t go too fast, either – slow down. Think this through. If you create your iTunes channel and then change where your site is hosted, such as switching from Podbean to Lipsyn, etc. you’ll lose ALL that work unless you change the feed location. The way that Yvonne and I like to change the feed location is by FIRST creating a Feedburner feed address through http://feedburner.google.com. This will be the constant. You can edit the FEED DETAILS in Feedburner later if you need to. You won’t lose your iTunes channel then. BUT you will have to do one of two things:

1. keep the old podcast site around and let it just hang out so the old links work

2. recreate all of the old posts from the old podcast site on the new one, possibly backdate the posts

If you choose option 2, you’ll also want to create 301 redirects in case you have folks that have linked to that site. If they have embedded the OLD location players, they will cease to work. Something to consider. Choose your podcast blog venue CAREFULLY. What I’ve learned by dealing with Podbean. I like their simplicity. What I do NOT like is that they make changes to the admin and programming that effect the players, the layout, the link structure and more without warning. I find out and then post to their support frantic and then they reply and usually resolve my issue, but I’m caught off guard. In one instance, I had to go back through all posts and redo the players to go with their new code because old code stopped working.

Items to look for in your podcast solution:

Template options that give you the features you need.

The ability to give your guests player code for specific shows to allow further promotion and reach.

The ability to have a player of all shows/play list of your shows to use on other venues.

The ability to subscribe to new post notifications.

Remember to have your guests help promote the show before, but more importantly, AFTER airing when you have your replay post ready to go. I suggest you give them a tidy “thank you” email package:

thank you note highlighting a moment.

graphic that you have as the featured image for that post/show

embed code so they can post

link to your post on your podcast site

consider creating graphics with quotes from the show they were on – “nuggets.” so they can share in their posts in various social media venues.

This is enough to get your feet wet. We’ll be covering related topics in the upcoming episodes of Geekspeak Guides. See more episodes at geekspeakguides.com , look for us on Google+ in our community and on my Youtube playlist.

Ryan J. Rhoades – CEO & lead graphic artist at Reformation Designs. Ryan and his wife Laura bust out some great work! “We do everything from business cards and posters to abstract art, book covers, infographics and video.”

Aaron Wood – He designs things. And draws things. He made a pillow with the word “Bacon” on it. And he knits. And he’s currently working on the logo for the +Food & Booze Show!

We are talking with first, second and third generation HOA Hosts on the pitfalls and successes of HOA’s. Tune in as we dive into some of their best practices for HOA Hosts, Guests and, yes, even the Audience. There are checklists and tips to help you be the best interviewer and host, the best guest panelist as well as a great off-camera guest in the comment area. Some may surprise you, there may be a rant or two.

Hosts, once you have your date set (at least two weeks in advance if you can) Prep your guest and check their equipment.

Make a list of points you want to cover and share it with them so they know the direction. Gives you material for pre-show promo posts, too.

If you have technical difficulties and have to pop out and back in, or arrive late, do NOT draw attention to yourself. Just come in quietly and slip into the conversation.

Hosts – Be sure to promote the show and give your guests instructions and expectations about promoting the show, as well. Make it EASY for them.

Hosts, if you have guests who have never met, have a meet and greet to increase show chemistry.

Dead air and pauses are OK! Hosts don’t have to fill in with “likes, ums, etc.” Let the show breathe a bit.

The WHY, HOW, WHEN and WHAT For’s of podcasting! Being able to podcast is turning into one of the best ways to re-purpose your content, so tune in if you want to learn more from the experts!

Meet Our Panel This Week!!!+Susan Finch – +Susan Finch Solutions Marketing, PR & Web Pro for DECADES! With a background in public relations and advertising since 1986, Susan is a “gentle guide for clients trying new venues online.” She engages those skills as she helps create an online presence that will appeal to existing and future clients and/or investors. All these factors are considered before she constructs a suggested plan for clients. It goes way beyond an online presence.

+Shannon Hernandez – is an on-air radio personality, podcaster, and social media/online resource. He assists small business owners optimize their marketing efforts through cloud productivity suites and increase their visibility on social media. He is also an authority on podcast generation and audio imaging production.

“An entrepreneur is an artist of sorts, throwing herself into impossible situations and seeking out problems that require heart and guts to solve.” ~ Seth Godin

You know implementing creative content strategies is key for your business growth. But where do you begin? How do you decide which strategy is best for your business? Which website theme is in alignment with your business model, and how do you create a consistent brand strategy across all your social media platforms? Aaahhhhh!

It’s the little things, along with the large things that touch my life and affect my week. I wanted to recap through gratitude: Sunday, returning from Cape Lookout, http://bit.ly/capelookoutor I was filled with gratitude for the amazing weather, considering there was flooding in the neighborhood throughout this week with heavy downpours. My Monday started out with …